Preview: Sharks Take on Senators

The San Jose Sharks and Ottawa Senators will complete their season series tonight at the Canadian Tire Centre and the Sharks hope for a season split.

The Senators skated away with a 4-2 victory over the Sharks at SAP Center on December 7, despite being thoroughly outplayed by San Jose in every facet of the game. Goaltender Mike Condon had a stellar showing as he stopped 35 of 37 shots on goal. All-world defenseman Erik Karlsson had three points in the winning effort and his 27 points again is setting the pace for Ottawa.

The Sharks will be facing a well-rested Senators squad who last played on December 11 when they dropped a 5-1 decision to the Anaheim Ducks at the Honda Center. The Ducks scored three power-play goals and outshot Ottawa 33-22 in the game.

The Senators are hoping to be rude hosts for the Sharks and are currently on a franchise best five-game winning streak against the Sharks. San Jose is fresh off a 3-2 shootout victory over the Toronto Maple Leafs in which San Jose scored two goals in the last half of the third period to force overtime. Logan Couture‘s shootout goal stole the extra point for San Jose, and Martin Jones stopped all three attempts to complete the comeback.

Starting Goaltender:

Game Notes

1)The Senators will be in search of their third consecutive regular-season series sweep against San Jose.

Brent Burns (Photo credit Zeke/THW)

2)Defenseman Brent Burns is on a five-game point streak with three goals and two assists in his last five games. He played 32:23 last night in the absence of Marc-Edouard Vlasic which lead the team by nearly 10 minutes over the next San Jose skater.

3)Mike Hoffman leads the Senators with 10 power-play points. The 27-year-old winger has five goals and five assists on the man-advantage.

4)Justin Braun‘s game tying goal in the last minutes of last night’s game was his first goal of the season. the last time Braun found the back of the net was on March 28, 2016, when he posted two goals against the Los Angeles Kings in a 5-2 Sharks victory.

5)With last night’s victory over the Leafs, San Jose is leading the Pacific Division with 35 points. Both the Edmonton Oilers and Anaheim Ducks have the same point totals, but the Sharks hold two more ROW’s (16 for the Sharks, 14 each for the Oilers and Ducks) and have games in hand against both squads.

Founded in 2009, The Hockey Writers is a premier destination for news and information on everything hockey. Updated daily with news and features from over 130 writers worldwide. Over 2 million monthly readers now come to THW for their hockey fix.